As Israel resumes war in Gaza, families of hostages fear the worst
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Boston Globe
10 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Israel hasn't prosecuted a single suspect for Oct. 7 attack
Advertisement Israel has killed many of the senior Hamas figures from Gaza who were seen as masterminds of the attack. But some in the country worry that the extensive delays in prosecuting the suspects in custody will allow some perpetrators to escape justice. Palestinians and rights groups have other concerns. They say Israel has systematically violated the detainees' rights by holding them without charge or trial in harsh conditions, with limited access to legal counsel. Sweeping gag orders keep most details of their cases under wraps, and for most of these detainees, there is no trace of them in any public records. The way Israel detains those prisoners 'effectively erases these individuals from public awareness and strips them of fundamental rights,' said Nadine Abu Arafeh, a lawyer who has represented detainees from Gaza in other cases in Israeli courts. 'Families in Gaza live with questions: Are their loved ones alive?' Advertisement Israel's Justice Ministry declined to comment. The delays in moving the Oct. 7 cases forward are at least partly because of the chaotic way that law enforcement agents, stretched beyond capacity, collected evidence right after the attack, according to Moran Gez, a former senior prosecutor who oversaw cases of detainees suspected of involvement in the attack, and Yulia Malinovsky, an opposition lawmaker briefed on the issue. The regular criminal justice system was ill-suited to handle the sheer volume of evidence and the compromised state of some of it, they said. Gez said she retired to open up a private practice. Israel has extensively documented the atrocities of Oct. 7, in some cases based on footage recorded by the attackers themselves. Several thousand Palestinian militants from Gaza took part in the assault, according to the Israeli military. They stormed more than a dozen communities, a music festival attended by thousands of people, and several military bases in southern Israel. They killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostages back to Gaza, in an attack that, according to the United Nations, involved war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. Amid upheaval and shock across Israel in the aftermath, investigators skipped many steps in the collection of evidence, according to Gez and Malinovsky. Some bodies were swiftly buried before forensic examination. The volume of killings made it nearly impossible for ballistic experts to trace bullets to specific weapons. Survivors who witnessed the events often did not immediately report their experiences to legal authorities, and they quickly scattered across the country before authorities could contact them, Gez said. Advertisement Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker from Israel's governing coalition, blamed state prosecutors for failing to find ways to adapt legal proceedings to the unusual scale and nature of the attack. Other considerations may have contributed to the delay in prosecutions. Israeli security agencies objected to having the cases of attack suspects move forward earlier in the Gaza war, according to Rothman. But they have since dropped that objection, he said in an interview. Malinovsky said she believes that senior Israeli officials feared that pursuing the cases could intensify public scrutiny of the failures by the government and military or undermine negotiations to exchange Palestinian detainees for Israeli hostages. 'They don't want that discourse,' she said of the government. The prime minister's office declined to comment on the reasons for the delay in prosecutions. The prison service and Justice Ministry would not provide any information on the detainees. Lawmakers in Israel recently took a first step toward putting some of those suspected of direct involvement on trial. The Knesset, or parliament, passed an initial vote in late May to establish a dedicated tribunal to try suspects in the attack. But the bill requires several more votes, and it will likely be months before the first detainees go to court. Rothman and Malinovsky were co-authors of the bill, which was meant to bypass legal hurdles to prosecutions by establishing a special tribunal of 15 judges with some capacity to override the ordinary criminal system. The bill proposes charging participants in the attack with offenses of genocide, which are punishable by death under Israeli law. Advertisement All of the roughly 2,700 Palestinian detainees who were rounded up in Gaza over the course of the war are designated as 'unlawful combatants,' which, according to Israeli law, means they can be held without charge or trial. Under the terms of a cease-fire earlier this year, Israel released about 1,000 of the 'unlawful combatants' to Gaza, in addition to women and minors detained in Gaza throughout the war. If negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a new cease-fire progress to a deal, some of the remaining detainees could potentially be exchanged for the remaining hostages in Gaza. The lengthy detention of so many people without trial 'risks becoming a life sentence without the usual protections of the criminal process,' said Monica Hakimi, a Columbia Law School professor and an expert on international law. At least 48 of these Palestinian detainees have died in custody, according to data from the military and prison service provided in response to freedom of information requests filed by Physicians for Human Rights — Israel, a rights group. In late July, Israeli lawmakers extended emergency provisions that allow the ongoing detentions of prisoners suspected of involvement in the attack in detention awaiting prosecution through January 2026, an indication that they may not face charges for at least six more months. 'This is a problem,' Rothman told lawmakers before the extensions. 'It's a malfunction.' This article originally appeared in
New York Post
12 hours ago
- New York Post
How Hamas turned kids into terrorists with TV show featuring jihadi mouse, bloodthirsty bunny
American kids may have grown up with Mr. Rogers telling them, 'You are special just the way you are,' but for a child in Gaza there was Farfour—a plushy, genocidal TV mouse screaming 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' Farfour, a costumed Mickey Mouse knockoff, was co-host of a kid's program called 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' which aired on Hamas-affiliated television station Al-Aqsa TV from April 2007 to October 2009. For anyone wondering how the ideologically-crazed fanatical fighters of Hamas came to be, the show offers some answers. 15 Farfour, a homicidal Mickey Mouse ripoff who advocated martyrdom and Islamic world domination, was murdered on air by IDF soldiers in a skit. YouTube 15 Criminologists have identified the tactic of using 'the deviant peer' to recruit children into abusive situations. YouTube Billed as educational programming to teach Islamic values to schoolchildren — much like a 'Sesame Street' or 'Barney & Friends' for the Middle East — 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' was a colorful, sing-song blood orgy celebrating Jew hatred and martyrdom. The kids who grew up watching it are now fighting age men — like those who carried out the October 7 massacre of nearly 1,200 Israelis and abducted 251 hostages. On the show, Farfour promised the kids of Gaza that together they'd oversee Islamic world domination and liberate Jerusalem from the 'murderers.' He mimicked grenade-throwing and shooting an AK-47. 15 Nahoul, a killer bee, preached to the school kids: 'We will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews,' referring to the fictional town where the characters lived. YouTube 15 Co-host Saraa Barhoum chats with Assoud the bunny, who promises kids, 'I will finish off the Jews and eat them.' YouTube Mia Bloom, professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University, remembers 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' well from her research into terror tactics. 'It's a constant stream of horrific propaganda that is almost impossible for a child to break out of. And so the kids grow up thinking that every Israeli should be killed because every Israeli is bad and evil,' she told the Post. The show's co-host, Gaza child star Saraa Barhoum — around ten years old when the show first aired and the daughter of a university professor mother and a Hamas spokesman father — said in a 2007 interview she wanted to be either a doctor or a martyr when she grew up. 15 11-year-old co-host Saraa Barhoum, who said she wished to be a doctor or a martyr when she grew up, stands outside the Al-Aqsa studio headquarters with producer Hazem Sharawi in 2007. Tribune News Service via Getty Images 15 Mia Bloom, a terrorism tactics researcher, says traumatizing children is a means of abusive control. Courtesy of Mia Bloom She also launched a singing career, recording pop songs with lyrics like, 'raise your sail for the sailors, and let your lighthouse illuminate the sea of blood.' 'There's a concept in criminology called a deviant peer. If I'm a recruiter—if I'm trying to get kids—I'm not going to use a 75-year-old man. I'm going to use a cool kid who's maybe a few years older,' Bloom says. 'Unfortunately, it's a common thing that happens within the child abuse space.' Disney, notorious for swooping in on copyright infringement, was aware of Farfour's Mickey Mouse likeness but chose to remain silent. They didn't have to for long: the network murdered Farfour on air during the first season. In the scene, the terror Mouse is being interrogated by IDF soldiers who beat him to death after he refuses to hand over documents. '[Hamas's] argument would be: 'These kids are already traumatized — this kid doesn't have a house, lost a sibling — the trauma is already there and the trauma is all around them.' 15 'This kind of layered trauma that you're deliberately exposing young Palestinian children to was not just a form of child abuse, but a long-term manipulation,' Middle East expert Bloom says. YouTube 15 The messages of 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' were reinforced relentlessly in Gaza society, through textbooks, news programs, and magazines. YouTube 15 Western children's shows like 'Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood' emphasize teaching tolerance and understanding, while children in 2000s Gaza were taught that Jews are descended from pigs. John Beale 'By traumatizing the children through the 'Pioneers' show, Hamas basically controlled the narrative and they could direct the trauma, instead of having this vague generalized trauma across society,' Bloom, author of the book 'Small Arms: Children and Terrorism' said. On the show, Farfour was replaced by a bloodthirsty bumblebee with a squeaky voice named Nahoul, who preached to the kiddos: 'We will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews,' referring to the fictional town where the characters lived, and 'revenge upon the enemies of God, the murderers of the prophets.' In season two, Nahoul gets sick. The Israeli authorities won't issue him a travel permit to receive medical treatment in Egypt and he dies. Nahoul is replaced by his rabbit brother, Assoud, a mangy Bugs Bunny knockoff, who tells the tykes at home in one episode: 'A rabbit is a term for a bad person and coward. And I, Assoud, will finish off the Jews and eat them.' In another episode Assoud is tempted by Satan to steal money from his father and sentenced to have his hand cut off, 'as the Prophet Mohammed commanded.' Assoud later dies in an Israeli strike and is replaced by a bear. 15 In one episode, Palestinian children joined in for a sing along in-studio welcoming their own death. YouTube 15 Farfour was the first 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' co-host to be murdered on air. Each of his replacements were killed on screen by Israelis. YouTube 15 A still from Tomorrow's Pioneers showing Assoud the bunny and his young co-host. IMDb In another episode, children were invited into the studio to tell the hosts of their wish to die as martyrs, and then sing a song about it. 'This kind of layered trauma that you're deliberately exposing young Palestinian children to was not just a form of child abuse, but a long-term manipulation,' Bloom says. 'It relates to October 7th. To have those resources and instead of making things better, you've just made things so much worse.' 15 Farfour the jihadi mouse told Hamas children 'We will liberate Al-Aqsa,' referring to the mosque in Jerusalem. YouTube 15 On Oct. 7, 2003 roughly 3,000 Hamas terrorists attacked various points in Israel, killing 1,200 civilians. Many would have grown up watching 'Tomorrow's Pioneers.' 15 Bloom, author of the book 'Small Arms' compares Hamas' afterschool program to ISIS requiring children to attend public beheadings. 'It's a constant stream of horrific propaganda.' While little information is publicly known about the estimated 3,000 Hamas fighters who conducted the Oct. 7 slaughter, ages 16-35 are considered 'fighting age' for men—meaning many of those combatants grew up watching their favorite plushy woodland creatures get executed by Jews on afterschool television. 'It's not just the 'Pioneers' TV show. It was amplified and reinforced by the textbooks that the children would read in school that demonized Jews and basically referred to Jews as apes and pigs and other dirty animals,' Bloom says. A 2008 analysis of Palestinian schoolbooks found a passage comparing Jews to 'invading snakes.' In popular media, a late 1990s Palestinian magazine article explained that Jews are the actual sons of apes and, due to the shame felt by this, the 'Jewish ape Darwin' invented the theory of evolution and applied it to all humans. Bloom, who has studied genocide, extremist movements, and child soldiers across the world, says it reminds her of the Taliban and ISIS—both of whom held public beheadings and required children of the community to attend. 'It's not exactly the same because killing Farfour was fake. But it's this idea of exposing children to obscene levels of violence. And it creates a preparedness to justify violence and to choose violence over other options.'
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hostage families sue ICC prosecutor, allege court has become 'branch of Hamas'
The lawsuit accuses ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan of turning the court into "a branch office of the terrorist organization," Hamas. The families of three hostages currently being held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas - Avinatan Or, Eitan Mor, and Omri Miran, filed a lawsuit for NIS 20 million against International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, NGO Shurat Hadin, which is representing the families, announced on Wednesday. The lawsuit accuses Khan of turning the court into "a branch office of the terrorist organization," Hamas. It demands that Khan be investigated for acting against Israel under ulterior motives - namely to sideline allegedly sexual abuse allegations against him. "The defendant not only slandered the State of Israel, not only presented false representations to the plaintiffs, but also provided services to terrorist organizations and assisted them," reads the lawsuit. It adds that when he finally did request arrest warrants for the three chief Hamas leaders - Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, all of whom were killed by Israel over the past two years - he coupled them with warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. Additionally, the lawsuit notes that it took him eight months to issue the warrants. It further notes that warrants were not issued against leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who too held hostages captive, as well as against other Hamas leaders. Shurat HaDin chief: The ICC has become a branch of Hamas "The blood libels the defendant wove against the State of Israel and its leaders, by creating a false moral equivalence between the State of Israel — the victim — and the terrorists who hold the hostages and abuse them daily, granted legitimacy to the terrorists to continue extorting Israel while holding and abusing the hostages," reads the lawsuit. Shurat HaDin founder and president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said, "The International Criminal Court has become a branch of Hamas. Through his direct actions, he gave an enormous tailwind to the terrorist murderers."
